Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Following is a guest post written by Parker Gallant. I've collaborated with Parker on articles that have appeared in The Financial Post and on the Energy Probe site noted by Parker and the Broadbent Institute.

I've previously posted articles from Parker that had no obvious home. A topic of those orphan columns were loans to a charity - MaRS - by an Ontario government body that didn't exist to give money to charities, but to fund Ontario's MUSH facilities. Years later the MaRS scandal is unfolding, as I hope a faux charity scandal will over time.

The Broadbent Institute and their selective report on “Political Activity” by charities

A recently released report from the Broadbent Institute claims it is dismayed the CRA doesn't come down harder on “right leaning charities” and picks 10 of those and desperately tries to provide quotes from reports and articles to back up their premise. (link to .pdf)

The report doesn't claim authorship by anyone at the “Institute” but the writer's personal opinion is that it sure looks like the author is Rick Smith, formerly Executive Director of Environmental Defence and now ED of the Broadbent Institute. The report tries to glorify five (5) of the charities currently under audit by the CRA including the David Suzuki Foundation and Environmental Defence. Those charities claim some of their revenue was spent on “political activity” whereas the 10 “right leaning” charities didn't make those claims.

The “report” attempts to vilify the latter by finding appropriate quotes/data from articles or reports. One of my quotes was included in an effort to discredit Energy Probe where I occasionally contribute articles. The quote; from a September 21, 2013 article I had penned about the “Sussex Group” and leaked documents the Toronto Star had reported on in 2010. In the article I noted “The “Sussex” document disclosed the “unnamed green energy developers would be in the company of Environmental Defence and the GEA Alliance, both instrumental in creating the Green Energy and Green Economy Act when George Smitherman was Energy Minister.”

I have penned several articles about Environmental Defence over the years when Rick Smith was their ED and more recently since Tim Gray took the reins. One of the earlier articles disclosed how much money ED had received from Ontario's taxpayersvia the Trillium Foundation, Friends of the Greenbelt and the Toronto Atmospheric Fund. It was over $3 million!

Monday, October 27, 2014

The Canadian Nuclear Association and Wind Concerns Ontario are both cited in a Forbes commentary pointing to the substantial studies that should be heeded to correct the poor EPA/NRDC proposal for a so-called "standard" to address U.S. electricity sector greenhouse gas emissions.

If we want to arrest climate change, all we need are more renewables like wind and solar, right? Not exactly, according to a newly published Canadian report on lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions (“GHG”). In fact, the report, which is based on 246 studies covering various power generation scenarios and constraints, concluded that nuclear power beats wind and natural gas on an ‘apples-to-apples’ basis for battling climate change.

I commented on my "levelised cost" post on reddit - and that might explain how "apples-to-apples" comparison requires the systemic approach of looking at a wind + gas scenario. The emissions figures provided in the Hatch study didn't strike me as varying significantly from the emission ranges provided in the latest IPCC Working Group III documents, but on costing, and providing realistic supply mix scenarios, WG3's work is behind Hatch's.

The deal reached at last week’s European summit on climate change will satisfy no one.
...The fractious debate which led up to the summit should be understood as marking the end of the “consensus” on energy policy established in 2008.
...Although not a total consensus, the 2008 policy was grounded on the broad acceptance of four cornerstone propositions, which over time have turned to dust. These core beliefs were:

Onshore wind is cheaper than gas, coal and nuclear when air quality, climate change and human toxicity are taken into account, according to a study published by the European Commission.
An analysis by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) of the data in the Ecofys report finds that onshore wind costs about €105 ($133) per MWh. Gas costs up to €164/MWh, nuclear €133 and coal €162-233.

The interim report also presents figures on the cost competitiveness of the different power generation technologies. The estimated ranges reflect costs of new power generation without public intervention (levelised costs). Costs for producing one MWh of electricity from coal are in a range around €75. Electricity from onshore wind is generated at only somewhat higher costs. Costs for power from nuclear and natural gas are in comparable ranges around €100/MWh. Solar power costs have fallen considerably since 2008 to about €100-115/MWh depending on the size of installations.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Following the issue of wind turbines impacting human health?
Jim Cummings' Acoustic Ecology Institute reports have been a favourite resource of mine on the issue for some time. I think he makes some excellent points in reporting on a settlement in Michigan - one that followed shortly after a health board in Wisconsin declared an industrial wind site a public health hazard.

...it’s essential that enough of a safety factor is built in to the sound models to account for known variability in sound production (how loud the blades are in various unsteady wind conditions) and sound propagation (how far sound travels as it gradually loses power). Regular readers will know that variability is indeed, as Howe mentioned, often more than the simplified 3dB margin of error that was neglected here (see AEI’s 2012 report). The second half the lesson is related: when noise limits—for the sound of the turbines when it reaches nearby homes—are set as high as 45dBA, they will be regularly audible at these homes, and likely well above night-time ambient sound levels. As many acousticians have stressed for years, these situations are very apt to trigger a significant number of complaints, especially if there are dozens of homes in that nearby range. Here, we had the worst of both worlds: turbine siting plans that pushed sound right at the limit into nearby homes, and a limit that was on the high end of tolerability for many neighbors. Indeed, after one such cautionary report was presented to the Mason County Planning Board, it decided to lower the limit to 40dB, but that change was revoked after push-back from Consumers Energy.
With this backdrop, this week the 17 original plaintiffs in the noise nuisance lawsuit agreed to a settlement offer from Consumers;

While it is even easier to build a natural gas-fired power plant, it is not at all easy to support it. Natural gas requires more infrastructure than any other energy source – for transporting the gas in pipelines, liquefying facilities and special terminals; and for storing it, often deep underground in geologic formations like salt caverns. These limitations are slowing even America’s expansion of natural gas.
Nuclear is the most difficult to build in the developing world. In the developing world, large-scale renewables are not effective since there is no baseload to support them, no back-up sources to load-follow the intermittency, and no extensive high-voltage distribution system. Hydro is possible, but is limited geographically and physiographically.
No, coal is the obvious energy source to bring a country’s starving people up into the modern world. After that, they may have the luxury to care about the planet.
Just ask China.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Reporters on the status of Germany's energy transition have been presenting some optimistic figures recently.
Renewables Internationale was one outlet noting figures for the first nine months of 2013, produced by Fraunhofer ISE, indicating "non-hydro renewables the number one power source in Germany for the first time."

The groupings required to make that statement are interesting: renewables include the infrequently discussed "Biomass" without which the "non-hydro" renewables would not beat either lignite of coal - or uranium/nuclear.

Not only is generation from "biomass"the highest of the renewables for the first three quarters of 2014, it also has the most growth over the same period in 2013. Biomass outgrowing wind is nothing new in Germany; between 2002 (when the nuclear phase-out first became policy) and 2013, generation from wind turbines more than tripled while the growth rate in generation from biomass almost tripled the growth rate in wind (increasing over 900%). source - AGEB

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) and Ontario Power Authority (OPA) have issued a report on the prospects of replacing Ontario generators with contracted imports - with the focus being on imports from Quebec.

Ontario electricity planners have dumped cold water on the idea of importing big volumes of electricity from Manitoba and Quebec.
There is “limited opportunity” for large amounts of long-term imports to supply the Ontario market, says the report by the Independent Electricity System Operator and the Ontario Power Authority.
Importing from Quebec wouldn’t be cheap, the report says.
It estimates that it could cost up to $2 billion to build new lines between Quebec and Ontario in order to import 3,300 megawatts of power.
In addition, it says, Quebec would have to build new generating stations to supply the increased exports — and they would be more expensive than existing facilities.

Solar panels and especially wind turbines produce vast amounts of energy, but on their own schedule, when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. The more conventional installations — coal, natural gas and especially nuclear plants — earn their keep by selling energy around the clock. Put enough wind and solar units on the grid during the hours when they are running and they flood the market and push down the hourly auction price of a megawatt-hour of energy.
...
“When we devote so many of our economic resources and our policies to the type of energy that produces power but not power on demand, we end up in a place where we start losing the megawatt we can control,” said Joseph Dominguez, Exelon’s senior vice president for governmental and regulatory affairs. “We’ve moved to a system focused on resources that provide energy when they want to.”
Not everyone agrees. Most electricity markets have auctions not only for energy but also for capacity; utilities serving homes and businesses make what amounts to payments to assure that electricity will be available when needed.
“No planner, no regulator and no utility is going to leave themselves capacity-short,” said Ron Binz...

Sunday, October 12, 2014

“We must be prepared to stand up to the bullies in the environmental movement and their subsidy-hungry allies."

The Telegraph has an article on an upcoming speech by the U.K.'s former environment secretary ("sacked" this past summer). If nothing else, the article provides some great quotes on topics I frequently cover.UPDATE - The speech has now been delivered and the text posted at the TelegraphThe Committe on Climate Change issued a response to the news report cited below.

...the current “decarbonisation route” will end with the worst of all possible worlds.
The Government will have to build gas and coal power stations “in a screaming hurry”.
...
Britain’s energy needs are better met by investing in extracting shale gas through fracking and capturing the heat from nuclear reactors, Mr Paterson will argue.
He proposes a mix of energy generation based on smaller “modular” nuclear reactors and “rational” demand management.
...
“We must be prepared to stand up to the bullies in the environmental movement and their subsidy-hungry allies.
“What I am proposing is that instead of investing huge sums in wind power, we should encourage investment in four possible common sense policies: shale gas, combined heat and power, small modular nuclear reactors and demand management.

Family physicians have an important responsibility in educating the public as well as their patients on health risks. This counsel must be based on sound, scientific evidence. The commentary by Drs. Dewar, Harvey and Vakil on Uranium Mining and Health (1) in the May 2013 issue of the Canadian Family Physician contains false and misleading information, demonstrating personal bias. These known anti-nuclear activists have appeared before the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) on multiple occasions and we are compelled once again to set the record straight and provide your readers with the accurate and objective information.
Drs. Dewar, Harvey and Vakil misquote a study of Czech and French uranium miners saying the study concluded excess lung cancer, reduced pulmonary function and emphysema due to alpha irradiation from radon and radon progeny (2). In fact, the referenced study did not analyze or publish findings on either reduced pulmonary function or emphysema; it focused on the impact of the quality of the exposure information and the effects of modifying factors (age at exposure, time since exposure) on lung cancer risk.
The authors also falsely claim that the hazards of uranium mining to surrounding populations have not been studied. In fact, a basic literature search of PubMed returned six relatively recent studies of cancer incidence and mortality in populations living near uranium mine, mill and processing operations (3-8). These studies consistently concluded there was no clear or consistent evidence that the nuclear activities had adversely affected the health of residents.

Saturday, October 4, 2014

The Boston Consultancy Group has a report on Germany's electricity experiment that is terrific; it is long and challenging, but should quickly become a reference work on the economic issues attached with Germany's Energiewende.
Meanwhile, the Canadian media, and wind lobby, display an infantile understanding of the impact of trendy electricity policies in misinforming people - while engineers at Sask Power achieved an important first with carbon capture and storage.

In 2010, Germany’s government defined a bold vision for the country’s energy future, one heavily reliant on renewable-energy sources, distributed generation, and energy efficiency...Fast-forward to today: Where does Germany stand in realizing its plan? Has progress met expectations? Does the country’s commitment to the plan remain strong? What are the implications of the ongoing energy transition (in German, Energiewende) for German society and industry, and especially for the country’s power sector? What are the implications for Europe’s power sector?This report seeks to answer these and related questions by assembling an objective fact base. One of the report’s key findings: Germany’s efforts may indeed transform the country’s energy profile as intended. But they will also likely lead to the end of power market liberalization in Germany and, very possibly, elsewhere in Europe.